Последние обзоры Orion

This game is so close to something great. What Max Loh has done with the skill, meter, image generation, plausibility and lore systems? Haven't seem them done nearly as well in any other AI service. It has everything that could make a storyteller with infinite potential.

But the issue with the game lies in how it's structured. You have all these preset rooms and locations that have very specific NPCs, enemies and other locations just there, waiting for you to interact with them. It feels very artificial and arbitrarily placed. Trying to progress a consistent story with this system is incredibly challenging, because quest progress is inconsistent and difficult to control. Moving between places feels very inconsequential, there's no real sense of distance or effort involved. The combat system is unpredictable and the very gamey nature of it all makes it hard to make a serious attempt at a story.

What this game really needs is to shed all of that. Keep the skills, lorebooks and maybe the meters, sure. But ditch the set locations, the ability to just click to go to a new place, the preset enemies and NPCs. Instead, make it freeform. Make a solely text-based adventure that works more like a dynamically growing novel, and have encounters, victories and setbacks arise naturally from the attempts written into the input. Instead of just clicking to go to the next room, have it play out in the narrative with greater detail. Instead of NPCs and enemies just there waiting for their turn to interact, have characters organically present themselves or leave as the story would sensibly demand.

The pieces are all there, they just need to be placed in such a way to allow for much richer and more dynamic storytelling. If that can be done, this could be something truly special.

This game is a rare breed. It's a true tactical RTS with a full-fledged campaign, an impressive ballistics simulation, an insane variety of units and a healthy selection of maps to play on. The campaign itself is surprising me so far with its presentation and fun factor, and the scenario editor will ensure that the game will have a healthy modding community for the foreseeable future.

I've been waiting for this game for so long, and it's had several betas and demos over many years. To see that Steel Balalaika has stuck the landing is heartening. The RTS genre has been flagging for a good while now, but Broken Arrow might just be a standout title that said genre has desperately needed.

Toby Fox and his team caught lightning in a bottle with Undertale, and Deltarune chapters 1-4 prove that it was no fluke. This is an insanely ambitious project, an odyssey that goes well beyond Undertale in terms of polish and depth in just about every respect. It will sink its hooks into you from the very first moment and never let go. I think it's safe to say that Toby is one of the most brilliant game developers of this generation.

"... an oracle told me. She said 'change is coming.'... The oracle told me that the game of the year 2025 was going to be made by a studio who found the formula to make it up here. It's stupidly simple, but somehow it keeps on getting lost. The studio made their game because they wanted to make a game that they wanted to play themselves. They didn't make it to increase market shares. They didn't make it to serve a brand. They didn't have to meet arbitrary sales targets or fear being laid off if the didn't meet those targets. ... But above all, they cared about their game, because they loved games."

This is an excerpt from the speech made by Swen Vincke of Larian Studios at 2024's The Game Awards. And it could never be more appropriate than when this game released this April.

Once in a blue moon, usually every 5 years or even longer than that (though the time gap seems to be closing as of late; we've had a lot of awesome titles come out in these past ten years), a game comes out that stands in a league of its own even among the classics. It is an experience that grips you from the very first moment, that keeps you glued to it the whole way through, that manages to find insane success through pure word-of-mouth over advertising simply because it is *that damn good.* It is a title that sends shockwaves through the industry by its sheer presence. Something that reminds you why you fell in love with video games in the first place.

This is that game. This is Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Everything about this game is masterful. The graphics take full advantage of Unreal Engine 5, allowing a modestly sized dev team (compared to AAA titles, that is) to imbue the game with a visual presentation and consistency that is simply unforgettable. Of particular note is the game's cinematography, not just in cutscenes, where there are shots that are downright oscar-worthy in their beauty and meaning, but also in the actual gameplay. Whenever you're exploring, the game effortlessly frames these jaw-dropping vistas in such a way that constantly evokes a sense of wonder. Seriously, every shot is a painting in this game. It serves the game well; I always wanted to explore every nook and cranny, hoping to find the next view that would blow me away.

This also extends to the battles, which is one of the deepest RPG battle systems I've seen in years. The pictos and luminas, along with the souls-like weapon stat scaling and perks allow for unprecedented character customization. You can play each party member in just about any sort of role you could think within such a system. You can even do silly things like have a party member immediately die on a battle start, and make that work in favor for the team by having a picto/lumina that instantly revives them and apply team-wide buffs upon revival.

And then there's the parry/dodge system. Drawing from the soulslike genre, this is a brilliant way to keep players fully engaged on the defense. It is downright necessary to master this system on the expert difficulty. But instead of being tedious or annoying, it's thrilling to pull off a perfect defense, especially since enemy attacks are very well-designed and highly varied in their animations and effects, and the dynamic cinematography framing these attacks boosts their intensity. Boss attacks are particularly impressive, with some being so epic in scale that my jaw dropped to the floor.

All this, wrapped in a metric ton of content that just keeps revealing itself to you in surprising ways if you take the time to look. I spent 65 hours playing through to the end, and there's STILL a massive amount of side content that I have yet to discover. I could easily see myself spending another 20 to 30 hours doing it all. There's SO MUCH STUFF TO DO.

Further enhancing the presentation is the music. It's insane. Utterly insane in its quality. There's *so much* of it, too. Every single area and nearly every scene has its own unique track associated with it. In fact, most areas have their own unique battle music, too. The composition and instrumentation is stunning. It's hard to believe that this was produced by a dude the devs randomly met and recruited off of soundcloud, and not an award-winning composer. Though I imagine Lorien Testard will soon be one himself.

The characters are visually distinct, highly memorable and brilliantly acted by both the voice actors and their motion actors. There is not a single bad performance in the game. But what's even more impressive is the nuance of the motion capture during quiet moments. Motion capture doesn't often grasp my attention in games, and at times, it feels like an afterthought. Not here; there are many moments where the characters are completely silent for extended periods of time. They don't even make breathing sounds or grunt, let alone say how they're feeling, so you're left to analyze their body language and their eyes. Sometimes, the way they physically react to something can say a thousand more words than they could ever speak.

And that leads to the writing. It's really hard to talk about this without spoilers, and this is a game you NEED to experience blind. But I can say that it's one of the most memorable RPG stories I've experienced in years. The game showcases an epic, emotional adventure rife with twists and turns, some of which completely turn everything you thought you knew onto its head. The worldbuilding is deeply imaginative without being force-fed to you, often relying on implication and visual presentation to get itself across. And the story's pacing is absolutely perfect. There's basically no filler, but it never feels like it's going too fast, either. It's a story that will stick with you for a long time.

I could go on and on about this game, but I'll stop here. The point is: buy this game. Buy it right the hell now. If I had to pick a small handful of games that I'd consider to be downright required for anyone to play, Expedition 33 would be one of them. It's one of the all-time greats and I'll never forget it.

I bought this through Matrix Games before getting my code for the Steam version. Armored Brigade 2 is an absolutely brilliant sequel to Armored Brigade 1. It's everything the first game was and more. The new 3d perspective helps immensely with figuring out sight lines, and while the graphics may be quite simple by the standards of other games, getting close to the action when the bullets start flying can be pretty immersive. The game has also had a lot of nice upgrades, too. The AI is great and a recent update gave units the ability to lay down a field of massed suppressive fire on areas they think they're taking fire from. One of my biggest issues with AB1 and AB2 up until this update was that units under fire by unseen enemies were just helpless sitting ducks that would get killed frustratingly often, so this is a huge deal, especially in close quarters combat, and it makes fighting that much more intense as they light up several grid spaces with massive volleys of return fire.

Another big improvement lies with helicopters. In AB1, they were like mobile turrets that didn't really do much else, but in AB2, they use more extensive movements and even utilize terrain cover to make their attacks. They can even make attack runs. Helicopters feel more dynamic than ever.

Unit variety is impressive as always, and the game offers peerless scenario customization, you can do literally whatever you want in a strategic scenario. You can even set up dynamic campaigns across massive maps, so you'll never really run out of things to do. All in all, if you love strategy games and sandbox experiences, Armored Brigade 2 is a no-brainer. It may not be as well-known as other wargames, but it has more than enough quality to stand on its own.

While this game is still a bit shallow in content, it has one *hell* of a foundation to build off of. The sheer amount of customization you have not only over your characters and your house, but also the city as a whole is downright STAGGERING, far beyond anything the Sims could ever hope to offer. The open world is incredibly detailed, too. The main flaws at the moment are the limited camera controls, the steep system requirements, the weird and unintuitive City Karma system, outdoor activities being kinda sparse and a lack of general direction, but these are all things that can be improved over time, no fundamental flaws here.

And the improvements that will come have such incredible promise. There is so much room for this game to grow. If the devs remain attentive to the playerbase, continue to build upon and refine the key parts of gameplay (social interaction, exploration, AI and Zoi memories/ambitions, as well as family andsocietal conflict/crime), I can see InZOI easily becoming the absolute exemplar of the life sim genre. I hope updates are frequent and substantial!

This game is one of the rare few tactical strategy games out there worth talking about. Hell, it's probably the best of them. DK2 is super polished and has a metric crapton of content. It's a massive improvement over DK1 in just about every way, and thanks to the addition of operator permadeath and campaigns, it basically has endless replayability, and all for a cheap $25 price tag. If you love hardcore tactical experiences, you owe it to yourself to pick this game up. It's a no-brainer.

HOWEVER. As great as this game is, there is one criticism I have. It's not about the game itself; it's about KillHouse Games. Door Kickers 2 had been in early access development for five years. *Five.* Needless to say, that's quite a long time for Early Access. Still, it's clear that the devs took their time to add as much polish as possible, which I won't hold against them. I appreciate their commitment to quality. What sucked was that there was no operator permadeath at all in the game in all the time before 1.0. That made it difficult to get invested in the whole progression system and gameplay in the game. It diluted the risk that came with planning your operations, because if one of your troops dies in an op, he just comes back.

But what really soured me was the radio silence from the devs between updates for much of the time. And there were LONG gaps between updates. Hell, the gap between the last major EA release and 1.0 was over a year, almost two years, even. While there were small patches and updates here and there, it was tough to wait several months at a time to hear an official announcement again. I can only hope that the community still has the passion after all this time to craft content for the full release, including full-fledged campaigns over mission packs. I'd hate to see the community having dwindled from its prime because of the long wait when the game is at its best.

It's not a deal-breaker. The quality of the game speaks for itself. It's just... be aware that you might be in for a very long haul with big stretches of silence when supporting future projects from KillHouse Games.

This game's clean and rather utilitarian presentation hides an insidious secret; LocalThunk has actually managed to synthesize crack-cocaine in the form of a digital card game. You WILL lose countless hours to it without even noticing the passage of time. It's that good.

This game could have been so much more. It *should* have been so much more. But it is woefully incomplete even with the 1.0 update. The dev basically took the money and ran.

This is a game, or really, a tool I never knew I needed. It's therapeutic, watching a world come alive and develop before your eyes. Fantasy Map Sim is in a very early state, though, so there's not too much depth to it yet. HOWEVER, the roadmap is very promising. I'm especially looking forward to custom races, world start states and initial expansion, and I hope to see features like the simulation of significant cultural events that can greatly alter a nation's course, as well as leaders! Not just political leaders, but cultural, criminal, spiritual and economic leaders. Characters can really make world feel more grounded and alive. If they could be done and interact with both the world and each other in dynamic ways, that would make this game a hell of a lot more interesting.

But even in its early state, I'd say Fantasy Map Sim is worth the cheap price, not just for watching the sim, but for making maps and developing history for original settings that you can use for yourself!